


A braunche of olyue tre with greene leeuys

by mercuryhatter



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 5 Times, Bookshop Drunk, Breaking Up & Making Up, Established Relationship, Fluff, Kissing, M/M, Other, Pet Names, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-03-13 10:26:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18939064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercuryhatter/pseuds/mercuryhatter
Summary: 5 + 1: Aziraphale calling Crowley "dove."Please note that this fic mixes book and TV canon and contains some lines and scenarios from the TV script, though liberties have been taken.





	A braunche of olyue tre with greene leeuys

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that this fic mixes book and TV canon and contains some lines and scenarios from the TV script, though liberties have been taken.

1.

Crowley didn’t speak to him for a week the first time Aziraphale called him _dove._

It was well before the Arrangement, before they had both given in to this thing that had kindled from the moment they saw each other on the garden wall*, but the Arrangement was only the coalescence of something they had been letting run its course unacknowledged for centuries. And after the Flood, with everything still freshly desolate from the waters, Crowley still shaking with exhaustion from days swimming on the surface in snake form**, they had met up again. The sound of it sent such a shock through Crowley that he stopped shaking.

“Oh, my dove,” Aziraphale had sighed, an arm around Crowley, rubbing his shoulder as if to impart warmth that Crowley was sorely lacking, and Crowley had just stared at him, yellow eyes wide in sheer terror. 

“ _No_ ,” he’d said vehemently, pushing the angel off of him, watching him go with a slight look of hurt at the corner of his eyes that Crowley absolutely could _not_ let himself care about as he wrapped his head scarf closer around himself and walked away as fast as he could across the mud-streaked sand. 

*If they were honest with themselves or each other, which they rarely were.

**Because he’d be-- well, not damned, but damn inconvenienced if he’d let himself get dragged to Hell when he’d just barely gotten out of it.

 

 

 

2.

By the 18th century Crowley and Aziraphale were at least comfortable enough to sometimes, occasionally, admit out loud that they had been married since they exchanged rings in the 12th. In their defense theirs was an unusually precarious situation. On the one hand, they could be uniquely certain of their relationship: after all, as immortals, ultimately there was no one else. On the other, they were husbands whose respective sides could do anything from prevent them from ever seeing each other again to outright destroying them if they were found out. Aziraphale sometimes thought it was easier for himself. Being an angel, it was difficult for anyone to notice anything was off with him for loving someone, even if that love was rather more concentrated and personal than angelic love tended to be. But Crowley- whom Aziraphale had been quite certain for many years had more love in his borrowed body than some humans were born with- Crowley held his love down with the force of a pressure cooker* out of necessity. Sometimes Aziraphale felt like he was getting a migraine just from watching it. 

*They hadn’t strictly been invented yet, but Crowley was already gleeful over his future plans to introduce them to cooking competition shows with tight time limits. 

Crowley let himself go every so often, only momentarily and with extreme care. Aziraphale would treasure him even if he never did so at all, but the times that he did were still more precious than the rarest book. Tonight, with his head between Aziraphale’s legs, he whispered a devoted, nearly desperate _I love you_ into the soft crease of Aziraphale’s thigh, sealing the words in with a closed-mouth kiss. Aziraphale gasped, folding over so that he could get his arms around Crowley’s shoulders, kissing the back of his neck.

“Oh, my dove, I love _you_ ,” he said, and managed to keep himself from saying anything else when he felt the gentle prick of a few stray tears against his leg.

 

 

 

3.

“We could go away together,” Crowley said desperately. Aziraphale could almost see his eyes behind his glasses as he gestured wildly. “Just get off this planet, go somewhere no one can find us.” 

“We _can’t!_ ” Aziraphale insisted, twisting his hands together against the pain of arguing with Crowley when he so wanted to just give in, let the demon take him off to Alpha Centauri or wherever it was and live with him in the stars he’d helped build, safe while the Earth burned. “It’s not that easy, Crowley, you know that! And I won’t!” 

“Oh, fine, fine, six thousand years just means nothing to you, is that it-”

“And the Earth means nothing to you, I suppose!” Aziraphale snapped. His throat was tight with tears but he shoved them back ruthlessly, grabbing for Crowley’s hand. “Listen, I’m sure I can fix this, all I have to do is reach the right people-” 

“And what about me? Hell _knows_ , Aziraphale! I can’t stay here!” 

“There’s nowhere to _go!”_  

They were both shouting now, though with their hands still entwined between them, and Aziraphale instantly regretted his last words the moment Crowley’s expression crumbled. He looked more scared than Aziraphale had ever seen him, and more trapped. Aziraphale sighed, his breath catching, and gripped Crowley’s hand tighter.

“Crowley, dove-” 

“ _No,_ ” Crowley snarled, snatching his hand back roughly. “ _Don’t_ do that. I’m going, angel, and where I’m going I won’t even think about you. You won’t even cross my mind.” He strode off across the park. Aziraphale waited, his hand hanging uselessly where Crowley left it, waiting for Crowley to look back. He never did, and once he had gotten in his car and sped away, Aziraphale gave in to the pain in his throat, letting himself sob just once before drawing himself up. The Apocalypse was nigh, and he had to talk to Heaven.

 

 

  
4. 

"I'd just like to say," he said, "if we don't get out of this, that . . . I'll have known, deep down inside, that there was a spark of goodness in you." 

"That's right," said Crowley bitterly. "Make my day." 

Aziraphale held out his hand. 

"Nice knowing you," he said. 

Crowley took it. 

"Here's to the next time," he said. "And . . . Aziraphale?"

"Yes." 

"Just remember I'll have known that, deep down inside, you were just enough of a bastard to be worth liking."

 

 

 

5.

They got all the way back to London in their borrowed Jeep and up the stairs to Crowley’s flat before the full force of what just hadn’t happened hit them. Crowley fell heavily on the couch in a boneless sprawl at almost the same moment as Aziraphale gripped the kitchen counter for support as his knees went weak.

“We made it,” he said faintly. 

“We made it,” Crowley echoed. He gave a short, hysterical giggle, head tipped back to look at the ceiling, glasses sliding down his forehead. “You told off the _Metatron_.” 

“You waved a tire iron at the _Devil!”_ Laughter seized them both then for several minutes until Crowley was horizontal on the couch with his face stuffed into a pillow and Aziraphale was bent double across the counter, hitting it weakly with his palm as he laughed.

“Oh, shit, angel, come here,” Crowley gasped as they wound down, letting the pillow drop to the floor and his arms open. Aziraphale was already in them, face pressed to Crowley’s chest, before it sank in that the last time they had spoken before the airbase was when Crowley had left him.

 _Had_ Crowley left him? So much had happened since then, and it wasn’t as if they hadn’t fought before. Had he meant it this time? Aziraphale thought he might deserve it for believing that Heaven would help them- for going to Heaven over going to Crowley. But even if he deserved it… he didn’t want it. Go- Sa- _somebody_ , he didn’t want that.

“Crowley,” he said in a small voice, feeling more than hearing the answering hum. “I’m so sorry.” 

“For what?” His tone was so light, still breathless from laughing. He forgave Aziraphale so easily sometimes that it hurt, struck Aziraphale hard in the bruised place at his core into which he pressed all their years of love and mistakes.

“I should have gone away with you,” Aziraphale said brokenly. “I should have trusted you.” 

“No you shouldn’t,” Crowley said, eyebrows shooting up in confusion. “How would we have saved the planet if you’d let me run away? You were an ass, but I stayed for you.”

“I know, and it all worked out in the end, but what I _mean_ is I should never have gone to Heaven. It should always have been you, Crowley.” 

“Don’t sweat it, angel,” Crowley said softly, tipping Aziraphale’s face up with his long hands to either side of it and touching his lips to his forehead. “We made it. That’s all that matters, really.”

“No it isn’t.” Aziraphale sat up, shifted position so that he could wrap himself as thoroughly around Crowley as he could. The desire to enfold him completely was so strong that he brought out his wings for the second time that day. “Oh, my dove. You matter. We matter. It _all_ matters.” 

“Yeah,” Crowley said, breathless now for a different reason. His own wings shimmered into existence, pressed folded against his back by the weight of Aziraphale’s. “Yeah, you’re right.”

 

 

 

1. 

“There’s one thing I don’t get,” Crowley said, passing the bottle of sangria to Aziraphale. They were pressed close to each other on the beach towel, sand cooling beneath them as the sun went down over Sussex and turned the waves pink.

“Only one?” Aziraphale asked, feeling fruit brush his lips as he drained the last of the bottle. It refilled under his stern gaze, and he passed it back. 

“Well, no, but this one thing I’m talking about right _now_ ,” Crowley said, rolling his eyes. “‘S just, why dove? That’s the thing I’m talking about.”

“Ah.” Aziraphale gazed at the horizon for a while, gathering his thoughts. “Well, doves. Symbol of peace, yes? Recon- reconci- oh, _forgiveness,_  you know.”

“What’s that got to do with me? ‘M a demom. Demon.” 

Aziraphale frowned, feeling far too drunk to get across what he wanted to say, but valiantly tried again. 

“Doves don’t fight _._ Not symbolically, anyway, I dunno, an _actual_ dove might fight. Don’t ask me, ‘m not a biologist. Anyway, the point is… opposite of fighting. Opposite of war. Of- of sides and apocalisses. Apocalippos. _Big end thing._ And so are you. So are we.”

“Huh.” Crowley mulled this over, swirling the wine absently just to watch the fruit circle and bump against the sides. “So we are.” 

“Didn’t think you liked it,” Aziraphale said. “Tried not to say it too much, but it slipped out sometimes.” 

“Oh, I always liked it,” Crowley said distantly. “I was just… afraid, I guess. Had a right to be. But not anymore.” He turned to Aziraphale and smiled, the sort of smile that Aziraphale had only seen once or twice in their entire existences before an eleven year old boy had set them free at the end of the world: broad, open, completely un-self-conscious, full of almost more love than Aziraphale could stand to look at directly. 

“No,” Aziraphale agreed softly. As the sun finally dropped out of sight, Aziraphale turned to grip the back of Crowley’s neck, fingers clenched in his loose curls, and kiss him with all the tenacity of a bird sharpening its beak on a mountain at the end of the universe. Maybe the bird had a spaceship, maybe it didn’t. Maybe the bird was an eagle, maybe it was a dove. The point was, Aziraphale had mountains and universes of time to kiss Crowley just like this. He could taste the sweet noises and feel the play of his husband’s fingertips at the skin of his jawline with all the fervid faith of a bird flapping its wings against the airlessness of space. He just counted himself lucky that between them both, they had enough love to fill all of that time.


End file.
